Post-Scarcity Blog

Ami Angelwings on the Utopianism of Star Trek TNG

Ami Angelwings noted that Q chose Picard to test, as a representative specimen of humanity, because as a personality he illustrates the biggest change from what he’d have been in the past (reformatted into paragraph form from @Ami_Angelwings Twitter, May 7, 2015):

I realized that the reason Q tests Picard, is that he represents the part of “humanity” that they need to see has evolved from the past. While we know him as an intelligent mature guy, he was a brash womanizer as a kid, who got into fights & loved em & left em. He left home, only freshman to win the marathon, he became the youngest captain, he has all these gary stu heroic stories. He’s a white straight cis male who shot to the top, he’s not the smartest guy, even as an explorer he’s still a military commander. Geordi could’ve solved the paradox, Crusher could’ve solved Farpoint. Point is that in other times, Picard would be the privileged oppressor. The test isn’t can ANY human expand their mind to figure out a paradox, or can ANY human have the compassion to solve Farpoint? The test is “can your white cis straight dude captain with the gary stu past who commands the strongest ship, figure that stuff out?”